It's not always something as big as a laptop...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080505063736778
Hospitals in Hong Kong lose data on 3,000 patients in thefts
Monday, May 05 2008 @ 06:37 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
Data on more than 3,000 patients in Hong Kong public hospitals has been lost through the theft of computer memory sticks, officials said Monday.
Nine memory sticks have been stolen from five hospitals across the city of 6.9 million in the past year, the hospital authority's chief executive Shane Solomon said.
Source - Monsters & Critics
[From the article:
'It is not a matter of staff negligence,' he said. 'It is a matter of people seeing a USB stick sitting around in a computer and thinking 'I'll take that, thank you very much.''
[Of course it's negligence. Armed robbery may be unavoidable, creating portable information isn't. Bob]
...because... Slow week, only 24 new reports...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2008050506355247
Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week
Monday, May 05 2008 @ 06:50 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee. This week, figure on at least two cups to get through the list.
Source - Chronicles of Dissent
Interesting, but not ground breaking.
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=360
May-5-2008
AHIMA Releases Privacy Roundtable Report
A new privacy and security report from four leading HIM experts is now available. In “Online, on Message, on Duty: Privacy Experts Share Their Challenges” four experts in health information privacy participated in a roundtable discussion on key issues related to the privacy and security of health information-and ways in which the industry may best address those issues. The report was released in conjunction with the American Health Information Management Association’s (AHIMA) fifth annual Health Information Privacy and Security Week April 13-19, established to raise public and professional awareness of issues related to the privacy and security of patient health information. The complete report is available at www.ahima.org/emerging_issues/2008PrivacyRoundtable.pdf.
Full story - Advance
Infrastructure choke point
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/018254.html
May 04, 2008
Digital Directory for 800 Telephone Companies Sparks Concern
The Ultimate Little Black Book - One Firm Routes All Phone Calls in North America, by Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post.
"Sterling-based NeuStar is the carriers' digital directory for all phone calls in North America. More than 800 telephone companies have numbers in the database...NeuStar's databases are so powerful that the FBI a few years ago sought direct, unfettered access to one containing 310 million phone numbers in the United States and Canada. The telephone companies that pay NeuStar to run the database denied the FBI's request, but they did allow NeuStar to create a site where authorized law enforcement officials with court orders can obtain carrier information on telephone numbers. NeuStar is part of an evolving telecom industry that is creating caches of information attractive to the government without clear guidelines governing who may have access and under what circumstances. Its registries fall under international, U.S. government and trade association rules, including those set by the Federal Communications Commission."
[From the article:
And about one out of every four Internet transactions is routed using a NeuStar database, as NeuStar handles traffic for domains that include .biz, .us, .org and .info.
... Soon, they said, NeuStar expects to be providing digital directory service for about 85 percent of all wireless devices in the world.
NeuStar officials say the government has not sought direct access to any of its databases other than the one the FBI requested, which covered numbers kept by customers as they switched providers, called a ported number registry.
But Al Gidari, a lawyer representing wireless carriers, said other major telecom entities -- billing vendors, 911 emergency service providers and call center operators -- have databases the government might want to tap. "If the government wanted access to their databases, there are no clear procedures regulating that access as there are for phone companies," he said. "That's a danger."
CyberWar – the Neville Chamberlain years? How far is too far? When should we take concerted action? Does anyone believe the Chinese government is not involved?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/05/1211259&from=rss
China's Cyberwar Against India
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 05, @08:40AM from the no-no-we're-cool-promise dept. Security
An anonymous reader writes
"China's cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability."
[From the article:
A quiet effort is under way to set up defence mechanisms, but cyber warfare is yet to become a big component of India’s security doctrine. Dedicated teams of officials — all underpaid, of course — are involved in a daily deflection of attacks. But the real gap is that a retaliatory offensive system is yet to be created.
And it’s not difficult, said sources. Chinese networks are very porous — and India is an acknowledged IT giant!
For my Computer Security class: How do you stop this?
100 E-mail Bouncebacks? You've Been Backscattered.
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Friday, May 02, 2008 4:10 PM PDT
The bounceback e-mail messages come in at a trickle, maybe one or two every hour. The subject lines are disquieting: "Cyails, Vygara nad Levytar," "UNSOLICITED BULK EMAIL, apparently from you."
You eye your computer screen; you're nervous. What's going on ? Have you been hacked? Are you some kind of zombie botnet spammer?
Nope, you're just getting a little backscatter -- bounceback messages from legitimate e-mail servers that have been fooled by the spammers.
Spammers like to put fake information in their e-mail messages in order to sneak them past e-mail filters. Because e-mail filters now just delete messages that come from nonexistent domains, the spammers like to make their messages look like they come from real e-mail addresses. That means, if your e-mail address has been published on the Web somewhere, you're a prime candidate for backscattering.
The spammer finds your address, or sometimes even guesses it, and then puts it in the "from" line of his messages, sending them out to hundreds of thousands of recipients. When the spam gets sent to an address that is no longer active, it can sometimes be bounced back ... to you.
Although Sophos estimates that backscatter makes up just two percent or three percent of all spam, antispam vendors say these messages are on the rise lately.
... Backscatter rarely hits more than one or two employees at the same time, so it isn't particularly disruptive. But it does worry users, he said. "It's mostly a psychological thing."
... Because backscatter comes from legitimate mail servers, it can cause special problems. In fact, some security researchers believe that the spammers have been intentionally sending messages that will be bounced back as a way to sneak around spam filters. That's because some mail servers bounce back the original message as part of their notice.
... At its worst the phenomenon can even wipe Internet servers off the map.
Last month, Stephen Gielda, president of Packetderm, upset a fraudster who was trying to use his anonymous Internet service. Soon his servers were inundated with a tidal wave of backscatter messages. At one point, he was being hit by 10,000 bounceback messages per second, enough to throttle the server's Internet connection.
... But the problem would largely disappear if server administrators configured their mail servers to immediately reject mail that is sent to nonexistent users, rather than accepting it and then bouncing it back to the faked addresses.
Ditto A list of crimes & criminals, including the prisons they are in.
Stupid hacker tricks, part two: The folly of youth
Tech-savvy delinquents set the Net aflame with boneheaded exploits that earn them the wrong kind of fame
By Andrew Brandt May 05, 2008
Are these the stake in RIAA's heart? The best business models turn your passion into profit...
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9934879-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
May 5, 2008 4:00 AM PDT
Music blogs: The new wall of sound
Posted by Greg Sandoval
... Now, the most popular blogs, such as Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, and Pitchfork, look less and less like Internet fanzines and more like tech start-ups.
Want to try it?
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/AltaBlogscom---Quick-Easy-Free-Blog-Setup/
AltaBlogs.com - Quick, Easy, Free Blog Setup
... AltaBlogs.com is a site that lets users create their own blog. AltaBlogs.com makes it easy for you to start blogging away by giving you an easy set up for creating your blog. First you must make an account with AltaBlogs.com and then you can set up your blog. You can choose your blog domain name as well as blog title. You can choose to have your blog searchable on Google or keep it private. It is quick, simple and free to start your own blog at AltaBlogs.com.
Related. Who needs traditional music publishers?
http://digg.com/music/NIN_Gives_Away_New_Full_Length_Album_the_slip
NIN Gives Away New Full Length Album - the slip
theslip.nin.com — as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com. the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE.
Related? I think so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/business/media/05idg.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
Publisher Tested the Waters Online, Then Dove In
By STEVE LOHR Published: May 5, 2008
... The biggest single step in the company’s online shift came on April 2, 2007, when the last print edition of InfoWorld appeared and it became a Web-only publication.
... Today, I.D.G. says, the InfoWorld Web site is generating ad revenue of $1.6 million a month with operating profit margins of 37 percent. A year earlier, when it had both print and online versions, InfoWorld had a slight operating loss on monthly revenue of $1.5 million.
... Without the physical limitations of print, Mr. Knorr said, it becomes easier to explore topics more deeply. InfoWorld presents a stable of bloggers, including 19 freelance writers, who are authorities in niches including data protection, green technology, open source software and cloud computing.
This is 1) a way to foil TSA laptop “inspections” 2) a way to steal all your important documents [Pick two]
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/Ilockerorg---Store-Important-Documents/
Ilocker.org - Store Important Documents
The last time you had a locker may have been high school, but that doesn’t mean that using one now is anachronistic; you just have to find one to match your needs. Allow me introduce iLocker. iLocker is an online safe to store important text documents. The web application encrypts the text using a password of your choice and their own encryption method. Once the text is stored away, iLocker does not save any information linking you to the locker, including your name or password. The result is a totally secure, anonymous location to guard your most important documents and writings. Puts that old high school locker to shame, doesn’t it?
E-mail tool Wouldn't be necessary if Microsoft was aggressively adding features.
http://venturebeat.com/2008/05/04/xobni-the-email-organizer-for-outlook-launches-publicly/
Xobni launches email organizer for Outlook
Matt Marshall May 4th, 2008
Xobni, the San Francisco company we raved about last year that offers a way to better organize your email from Outlook, is launching publicly with its test version.
Its key feature is a sidebar in your inbox that shows you profiles of the people you’re corresponding with. It makes information easily accessible, such as their phone numbers, past correspondence and files you’ve exchanged with them. We mentioned last week its work to join Microsoft and Yahoo’s email offerings.
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